Gwen Avery, the singer-songwriter whose song "Sugar Mama" made her a prominent figure in the women's music movement in the '70s, died Jan. 31 in Santa Rosa. She was 71.

The cause was complications from gallbladder surgery, said June Millington, a longtime friend.

Ms. Avery didn't release her first full-length solo album, "Sugar Mama," until 2001, when she was 58, but she made her presence known decades earlier with the original song of the same name. Featured on the groundbreaking 1977 Olivia Records anthology, "Lesbian Concentrate," the standout track revealed her as a brave, powerful singer who didn't hold back.

A tour with label mates Linda Tillery and Mary Watkins billed as "The Varied Voices of Black Women" further established Ms. Avery's reputation as passionate performer and feminist icon.

"Gwen Avery was an authentic blues and gospel singer," Tillery said in a statement. "She was raised in a juke joint, where from an early age she heard first hand the sounds of black troubadours weaving tales of love, passion, frustration and pleas to God - any god - for release from Jim Crow, segregation and the horrible legacy of racism in America."

Settling in North Beach

Ms. Avery was born in Verona, Pa., a small town outside of Pittsburgh, in 1943. She spent most of her early years at a small speakeasy run by her grandmother, Clara Benson. The venue served as a refuge for African Americans who were not welcome in the city's white-owned bars and nightclubs.

By the time she was 4 years old, Ms. Avery was using a kitchen table as a stage to sing for the regular clientele while her grandmother tended bar.

Her father left the family before she was born and when she was 8 her mother moved to Ohio, leaving Ms. Avery in the care of her grandmother. She dropped out of school in the second grade and spent most of her days passing time at the juke joint.

"How the hell are you going to do your homework when people are fighting and cussing all over you?" she told The Chronicle in 2001.

Ms. Avery moved to San Francisco in 1969, when she was 25, after seeing an article on the city in Life magazine that featured people smoking marijuana and doing yoga in the streets. "The city was so permissive, there were even openly gay cops," she said. "My eyes bulged out of my head onto the page. I was gone."

She settled in North Beach, where she found a coterie of friends and made a living hustling pool and singing with the hard rock band Full Moon.

In the early '70s, Ms. Avery was invited to perform at a women's music festival in Santa Cruz - an eye-opening experience for her. Her first public work appeared on the compilation "Any Woman's Blues," which was recorded at a women's prison in 1975.

After the release of "Lesbian Concentrate" on Oakland's Olivia Records, a label run entirely by women, Ms. Avery spent some time on the road but had difficulties releasing her own material.

She became even more disillusioned as, in the early '80s, many of her friends began dying of AIDS and she lost her longtime partner to breast cancer. Ms. Avery spent some time singing with the Glide Memorial Church choir in San Francisco and performing at small venues, usually at benefits for battered women, gay rights or other political causes close to her heart.

Rescuing music career

Ms. Avery met Emily Tincher, who would become her manager and romantic partner, at a songwriting workshop in 1999. Enlisting Tillery, they began work on the album "Sugar Mama," which was released independently.

It didn't sell many copies but helped salvage her music career, drawing praise from national outlets and allowing her to go on tour. She regularly performed at local Pride events.

In 2006, Ms. Tillery and pianist Tammy Hall organized a benefit concert for Ms. Avery at the Brava Theater in San Francisco to help her make ends meet.

Ms. Avery spent most of the past decade living and performing around the Russian River region, doing regular shows at the Main Street Station and the Women's Weekend Festivals in Guerneville.